


Come Back to Me

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: 3rd Age - The Kings, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 13:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3770267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long before the War of the Ring, an entwife meets the River-daughter. Slash, of a sort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Back to Me

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

>   
> _ENT. When Spring unfolds the beech leaf, and sap is in the bough_  
>  When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow;  
> When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain-air,  
> Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair!  
>   
> ENTWIFE. When Spring is come to garth and field, and corn is in the blade;  
> When blossom like a shining snow is on the orchard laid;  
> When shower and Sun upon the Earth with fragrance fill the air,  
> I'll linger here, and will not come, because my land is fair.  
>   
> (from "Treebeard", _The Two Towers_ )

*******  
Around 1700 Third Age; western Cardolan  
*******

The cattails and bulrushes whispered in the gentle breeze, and Fimbrethil felt a sigh escape her. How she missed her kin! A part of her longed to shake the soil from her roots and begin the long march back to Fangorn. He wanted her to return; she felt it in her sap. She should return to her mate and begin the family they had put off for too long.

Yet when the birds came from the east seeking news of the lost Entwives she urged them to say nothing of her. There was such a thing as duty to the land. Annúminas had fallen and the new king at Tyrn Gorthad did not fear the wrath of trees, let alone the grasses and flowers that his soldiers trampled under their feet. Perhaps that was why she stayed? But the younger guardians, mere children when the Entwives left Fangorn, could guard this corner of Eriador. Did Fangorn not need her help protecting their home?

She let one of her branches dangle in the stream that ambled by her. A current she had not noticed before ruffled her leaves, and she heard a sound of humming, an old song like those sung by the hobbit-women who sometimes washed their linens at her feet.

"Who is there?" she asked. No voice answered her but the wind blew more persistently, and the water lapping against her felt warmer, somehow more friendly. A hand pulled her leafy curtain aside, and a lady wading through the water stepped near her. "Peace, Mistress of Fangorn! I am River-daughter, she whom many name Goldberry."

Fimbrethil looked at the intruder. "And how do you know me?" she demanded. "We have never met before that I remember. And Entwives do not often forget."

"No, we have never met," Goldberry replied. "But the fish bring me news of all that is said in their presence. They have heard your lord describe you to many things, elves and men and dwarves and beasts, and so I have heard some of the tale of his search for you. Why do you not return to him?"

Fimbrethil searched her mind for an answer as she had done so many times before. When she could think of nothing to say she said nothing, yet for a long time Goldberry sat on the bank in companionable silence.

*******

A decade passed. Goldberry often came to the small stream off the Brandywine where Fimbrethil lived. They talked of many things: of lamps and stars and fire-spirits that illuminated the whole sky, the early journeys of the Elves, and how she had forsaken the light of the trees for the dusk of Middle-earth. "There is a river in Greenwood," she said one evening, "where if you touch its water you dream of those things that you cannot have in your waking life." Goldberry threw her head back and laughed. "You should see the elves who live there, Fimbrethil! They smile so radiantly in their sleep. They know true peace, and awake thinking the wars may some day end."

"I have heard of that stream!" Fimbrethil chuckled. "So that was your handiwork? I should have known."

"Well, not mine alone," Goldberry admitted. "The dreams themselves come from Irmo, and he gave me the waters from his gardens that I poured into that river. But I _did_ choose where to bestow his gift. I'm quite pleased with the results."

"As you should be," Fimbrethil replied, her voice now serious. "You brought hope to those who have none."

Goldberry braced her elbow against a large root and sat up. "And you?"

"I always had hope!" Fimbrethil argued.

"I know that," Goldberry said. "You Ents tend to take a long view of things, and you do not weary of Middle-earth like the Quendi do, because you were made for these rougher lands. But do you still dream for things you think you can never have?"

The smile faded from Fimbrethil's face. "I do not know what you mean."

Goldberry looked up at the ent and smiled sadly. "You do. Tell me, Fimbrethil, why don't you return to your lord? Have you found your answer yet?"

Fimbrethil looked away. "I could ask the same of you."

Goldberry laughed again, that laugh that warmed Fimbrethil at her core, and she laid back so her golden hair floated on the water in a halo around her. "I have no lord," she said. "Tom Bombadil and I are mistress and master of these lands, that is true. But all the trees and grasses and all things growing or living in our land belong each to themselves.* And the same is true of me—and of him, come to that. Neither of us is lord or mistress to the other, and none has yet mastered us."

Fimbrethil looked at her with disbelief. "But you are his wife."

"And what would my love mean," Goldberry asked, "if it came out of fear or mastery and not from free will? For us children of the West, love is not such a simple thing as it is for you. Tom and I are partners, certainly. He brings me lilies and I remind him of all in the world that is worth saving. But does he love me? My kind does not love each other as yours do; that is for ents and elves and everything else made from the bones of Arda. I certainly do not feel bound to him." Goldberry untangled herself from the roots, rose to her feet, and looked Fimbrethil in the eye. "And what of you, forest-daughter? I know little of ents, but were we elves or men our families would think that we spent too much time too close together to be anything but close kin or lovers."

Fimbrethil let strands of leaves fall down, covering her face, but Goldberry pulled them aside. They both knew they were beyond hiding what they felt from each other. "Ents are not elves or men," Fimbrethil said at last. "Our love is slow to kindle and slow to cool, and to break a marriage vow would be hasty indeed! But Fangorn and I had grown apart before I ever crossed the Misty Mountains, and when I left our forest we loosed each other in our hearts. He said when I returned it should be out of love instead of duty. He expects me to go back to him someday, but for now he has no claim on my affections."

"I did not know."

"You would not. It is not something I readily speak of." Fimbrethil tried to pull the leaves out of Goldberry's grasp but Goldberry held them tight, and Fimbrethil closed her eyes in shame.

Goldberry stepped out of the water and ran her finger through Fimbrethil's leaves, letting it rest on the ent's face. "There is no shame that I can see, Fimbrethil. You and Fangorn are wise to test your love so, and wise not to expose yourselves to others' scorn." She paused. "Do you love me?"

Fimbrethil opened her eyes. "Why do you ask me that? You said that your kind do not love."

Goldberry shook her head. "You did not listen. I said that we do not love each other. I have heard of one maia who loved, though her heart was held by an elf-lord. Perhaps it is possible if we have another's heart to awaken passion in our own." She shrugged her delicate shoulders. "I am no scholar, Fimbrethil. I am a river-daughter; I only know of simple matters, summer rains and beavers' carpentry and that lilies must be saved from winter frost. But I have felt more alive since I have met you than I can ever remember."

She hesitated for a second, but then without saying a word she grasped one of Fimbrethil's branches and pulled herself upward, balancing on the balls of her feet. She pressed her lips to Fimbrethil, sharing the bitter taste of willow bark and the sweet hint of sap. A tendril of Fimbethril's leaves wrapped around Goldberry's back, holding her close. After a moment Goldberry pulled back, and Fimbrethil gulped in the cold night air.

"If you love me," Goldberry said, her voice a little ragged now, "come down to the stream's edge."

She turned and dived into the water, and Fimbrethil quickly followed, stepping forward until the stream covered half her roots. Goldberry's head emerged from the water, her face lit with a warm smile and her golden hair fanned out along the water's surface. As Goldberry walked toward the bank Fimbrethil saw that Goldberry's dress was gone; she marveled at the maia's smooth ivory skin, the gentle curve of breast, hip, and thigh. Goldberry grasped a branch in her hand and rubbed her thumb along it; Fimbrethil felt a shiver travel from her roots to her highest branch. "Do you trust me?" Goldberry asked, and Fimbrethil found herself answering "I do" without pause.

Goldberry let go of Fimbrethil's branch and dove backwards into the water. Fimbrethil felt a current of water rush past her roots and lap against the base of her trunk. And she saw the pines of Dale, orchards in Ithilien, grassy hills covered in niphredil with golden mallorn leaves overhead: all the lands fed by Goldberry's waters. It was as though her mind had joined the river-daughter's, and their memories were one.

Fimbrethil crouched down deeper, trying to get as close as she could to the water under her. She let her branches fall into the water and imagined she was touching her beautiful maiden: now her back, now her cheek, now her breast, and the water felt more pristine than it had when the ents first awoke before Morgoth had ever broken Aulë's lamps.

A soft rain fell all around her and she knew that that too was her lover, coating her leaves and dripping down her bark in rivulets and forming small pools on the ground beside her. She let out a low moan, sending the birds in the crooks of her branches flying. Her eyes closed; she felt the water lap around her roots and under her trunk and against her leaves and the rain pounding against her face and branches and everywhere else, until at last she let out a shrill cry. Her branches fell limp, and she rested back on the roots anchoring her to the firm ground.

At last her breathing slowed, ands she lazily opened her eyes. And there lay Goldberry, draped across her roots with one arm wrapped around her trunk, a content, sated smile lighting her whole face.

*******

Goldberry often visited Fimbrethil at that stream, and they would walk over the fields and hills between the forest and the river. She taught Fimbrethil to recognize her as the ray of light that swam upstream, the pounding rain that glided down one leave and then another, the silvery fish that glittered in the moon light, even the current that brought with it memories of lands Fimbrethil could never have seen. The ent came to see the beauty in all of these forms, for they wiped away the filth and made all things clean again.

And Fimbrethil in her turn showed her lover the beauty of permanency. She had explained how the oak tree was so precious just because it had struggled through decades since its acorn fell on the harsh earth, and she taught Goldberry the song of the wind blowing through the grasses of a field where no elf, dwarf, man, or other such creature had imposed himself. She shared the secrets of bird-speech with her, and Goldberry delighted in their songs and valued the stories they told her of things that passed away from the water's edge.

"Why do you still linger?" Goldberry asked her one day. Fimbrethil looked up at her, puzzled. The maia sat perched in her branches, twisting a flower between her fingers.

"That is a strange question," Fimbrethil said. Her lips quirked into the smile that had become much more common these last years. "Why would I wish to leave you?"

"Not leave me!" Goldberry laughed. "Do you still not understand? I can come to you anywhere, though if you went to, say, Edhellond or Rhûn my visits might be less frequent. And of course I cannot leave Tom for more than a season; his woods depend on me. Still, anywhere there is water, I could at least come see you from time to time." Her smile softened, and her voice grew a shade more serious. "But that is not what I meant. When first we met you did not know why you stayed here and did not return to Fangorn. Have you found your answer?"

Fimbrethil thought on that for a moment before she shook her head. "No, but the not knowing no longer bothers me. The hobbits are such curious creatures! They make me smile so, and I know I would gladly die to shield them."

"And will you one day return to him?"

"Perhaps," Fimbrethil said, "though I do not think that meeting will happen soon. If it ever does." She frowned as she realized what she had said. "Does that bother you?"

Goldberry shook her head. "I knew our love was never meant to last through the ending of time. Fangorn is blessed with that fate. But I am happy just to know what love is, and enjoy it for as long as fate permits. I do not covet more than is mine."

She slipped out of the tree and took one of Fimbrethil's limbs in her hand. With the other she pointed out a hollow tree across the field. "Come, I tire of talk," she said. "You spoke last night of the draught you keep in that tree; you must get me some, so I may taste it." And she led Fimbrethil across the field, ready for another adventure.

********

> ENT. _When Winter comes, the winter wild that hill and wood shall slay;_  
>  When trees shall fall and starless night devour the sunless day;  
> When wind is in the deadly East, then in the bitter rain  
> I'll look for thee, and call to thee; I'll come to thee again.  
>   
> ENTWIFE. _When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last;_  
>  When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past;  
> I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again:  
> Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!  
>   
> (from "Treebeard", _The Two Towers_ )

**Notes**  
The passage marked with a * is adapted from a passage in "In the House of Tom Bombadil", _The Fellowship of the Ring_.

This tale makes use of two stories outside of _Lord of the Rings_. First, the story of Melian, the maia who fell in love with Elu Thingol (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melian/). You can read about it in _The Silmarillian_ , Quenta Silmarillion, "Of Melian and Thingol". Also, the stream in Greenwood (Mirkwood) is inspired by Bombur's dreaming of a feast after he falls into a river in _The Hobbit_ , "Spiders and Flies". But I hope the story is comprehensible if you have at least read the Old Forest and Fangorn chapters of _The Lord of the Rings_.

Did Tolkien intend this? Perhaps not. On the other hand he told us next to nothing about love and marriage in either race. Remember, LACE applies to Elves (if even all of them); nothing says it holds any weight with other races, especially those whose culture isn't derived from the elves like maiar and ents. And after all, what is fanfic if not an attempt to fill in some of the unpainted corners of the canvas? I do try to honour the spirit of Middle-earth, but part of that means working within Tolkien's device of the Red Book and Bilbo's _Translations from the Elvish_ as actual history, not personal invention that needs to reflect the author's modern likes and dislikes. This story is meant as a meditation on love, duty, and eternity within Tolkien's societies rather than a case for romance between these specific characters, and if it works on that level, I am satisfied.

Enough notes! Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
